Mount Everest: A new route avoids treacherous Khumbu Icefall in safer path to summit

Each spring, climbers from around the world converge at Everest’s South Base Camp in Nepal, hoping to summit the world’s tallest peak. For the Sherpas guiding them, the journey grows deadlier each year.

Rising temperatures are destabilising the Khumbu Icefall, the most treacherous part of the climb. A Nepali-French team has been working on a new route that may offer a safer path up Everest, their work offering a glimpse of how mountain communities are adapting to a warming world.

At lower altitudes, this new route winds through rock rather than ice, featuring a mix of permanent via ferrata infrastructure – steel steps drilled into the rock and fixed ropes to provide added security for climbers.

In particular, the route is intended to protect Sherpas, whose work as guides requires them to make the ascent multiple times during each climbing season with different expeditions. It will be the first new path to the summit from Nepal since Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary established the current route with their historic 1953 ascent.

Concerned by the growing risks posed by Everest’s unstable icefall, French mountaineer Marc Batard and Nepali mountaineer Kaji Sherpa began working on establishing this alternative route in 2022. After facing delays due to bad weather, the route is expected...

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